


build and rebuild

by templemarker



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post tsunami issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21951037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: "Alright buddy," Buck says, tucking the blue blanket under the stack of books to anchor it down to the dining room chair, "this feels like a pretty good fort. What do you think?"Christopher carefully pushed his glasses up his nose, adjusting the band that holds them to the back of his head as he looks around their blanket fort. "Yeah, Buck," he said, smile breaking open on his face. "I like it! It's a good fort."
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	build and rebuild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csi_sanders1129](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/gifts).



> This takes place sometime between 3x03 "The Searchers" and before 3x05 "Rage". No explicit tie-ins to an episode, though.
> 
> Thanks to PM for all the things. <3
> 
> Happy holidays!

"Alright buddy," Buck says, tucking the blue blanket under the stack of books to anchor it down to the dining room chair, "this feels like a pretty good fort. What do you think?"

Christopher carefully pushed his glasses up his nose, adjusting the band that holds them to the back of his head as he looks around their blanket fort. "Yeah, Buck," he said, smile breaking open on his face. "I like it! It's a good fort."

Buck leans back into the couch, the main wall of their blanket fort, and digs out a couple of juice pouches and an unopened box of animal cookies he'd tucked away before they'd started. He passes an apple pouch to Christopher, who scoots closer until he's sagging against Buck's side, digging animal cookies one at a time out of the box. 

Buck closes his eyes, hard; the trust Christopher shows in him, after everything they've been through, staggers him. It feels like Buck shouldn't deserve it. Not that he's a bad guy, not that he's done something terrible. But the kind of earnest, trusting affection Christopher has for him feels so huge that Buck feels like he couldn't get enough karma in five lifetimes to deserve it. 

He runs a hand through Christopher's untamed hair, smiles back when Christopher tips his face up and grins. 

Buck clears his throat. "So, Chris," he says slowly. "Your dad says you aren't sleeping too well. That you yelled for me a couple of times in your sleep." Christopher goes still against him and looks away, clutching the blankets in one hand before releasing them, doing it again a moment later. 

Taking a shaky breath in and out, Buck rubs his hand along Christopher's arm. He doesn't feel equipped for this; he can barely talk about his own feelings about all his own shit much less try to convince a traumatized eight-year-old to honestly share his nightmares. But Eddie had asked, and it doesn't take a genius -- or his nosy sister, or his smirking teammates -- to know that Buck would do just about anything Eddie asked him to do, all the more so when it involves Christopher. 

So he'd stared at his ceiling last night, sleepless, trying to figure out what he could do to make Christopher feel safe and comfortable, and he remembered the blanket forts he made with his friends when he was a kid. They'd built one at his house once, in the basement, and it stayed up for a whole week before his parents had told him to take it down. It had felt like his own space, where he could just be himself, with no eyes on him telling him what to do or how to behave. 

A run by CostCo and a family pack of fleece blankets later, he and Christopher had constructed their very own fort in the Diaz living room, and Buck felt something of that safety again. 

"You don't have to tell me, buddy," he says softly to Christopher, who's taken another animal cookie and is slowly breaking it down into crumbs against his leg. "But I know what it's like to have nightmares, and I've definitely had some big ones after the--" he takes another breath, breathes it out like Chimney taught him, "after the tsunami. It's always better if you talk to someone about it."

Christopher considers this, and turns back to look up at Buck. "Do you talk to my dad?" he asks, like the answer should be obvious. 

Buck bites his lip. God, setting an example for kids is _hard_ ; how do parents do it all the time?

"Yeah, Chris, I do," he says, mentally adding _sometimes_ to the end of the sentence. "I talk to my sister, too, you remember Maddy? And I talk to the Captain." _Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes,_ he qualifies in his head. 

Christopher wipes his crumby hand against his pants -- Buck is already thinking about vacuuming -- and puts his hand on Buck's bicep so that he's clutching Buck's arm against him. It's so similar to how Christopher clung to him when the water rushed towards him that he shudders, trying to hide it by shifting to make Christopher more comfortable.

"I, um," Christopher says, looking at the blue plaid blankets making up the far wall of the fort, "sometimes I think about it. Before I can fall asleep. I hear the noise again, that sound of, of, the way the waves stopped, when the water went away..."

Buck tugs Christopher close, tries not to close his eyes, and listens.


End file.
